Middle school crosses the line with sex education

Young students at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, N.Y., dropped their mathematics and science books for an evening and instead were taught lessons that many parents furiously declared were not appropriate for middle school children. These lessons, taught by a group of students from Bard College, consisted of two workshops based on gender.

During these sessions, the girls were told they must ask another girl in the room for a kiss and were taught words such as “pansexual.” The boys were taught in another session to always carry a condom and how to successfully identify a “slut.” The parents were not notified of these workshops, and children were not given the chance to opt out.

“We don’t judge people like that in our family,” an anonymous parent told Fox News. “We don’t call women names because of what they wear or who they date.”

The young girls were also told at 14 years of age that it is normal for them to have sex, and their parents do not have a say in the matter. And yet, apparently, the point of these anti-bullying seminars was to teach the girls boundaries and “how to say no.”

“I was absolutely furious — really furious,” an anonymous parent told reporter Todd Starnes at Christiannews.net. “These are just kids. I’m dumbfounded that they found this class was appropriate.”

Talk about mixed messages. Why would any child grow up wanting to stop sexual advances when they are told blatantly it is alright to have sex? Plus, in my opinion, when the father and mother give the child food, a safe place to live, clothes, etc., it is their right to tell the child not to have sex.

Ephesians 6:1-4 states, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother — which is the first commandment with a promise — so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Applying this Bible passage to the middle school seminars, we know the children should in fact obey their parents, especially at the vulnerable age of 14, and fathers ¬— and mothers — should train their children. If my child was enrolled at that school, they would not be attending after those seminars. Parents should be given the chance to address training of that nature. Strangers should not be handed the extreme freedom and responsibility to give morally shaping lessons to children.

When children are young, their parents punish them, but when children become adults, the world punishes them. I guarantee you the patient tongue-lashings from parents are much preferred over the unyielding consequences given from a sinful world that owes you nothing.

If 14-year-olds are instructed to disregard the teachings of their parents and indulge in sinful pleasures, they are inadvertently being thrown into a world full of severe punishments before their time.

Children need time to be children where their only concern is who will play a kickball game with them after school. It is incredibly sad how today’s world makes sex look easy, necessary and without consequence.

In this culture, parents need to be more alert than ever to tell their children at a young age that this God-given world has beautiful aspects free for them to enjoy at any age while some God-given gifts are simply made to wait.